What's wrong Mr Fingers? Do you not like my mouth words?

So here's a update on how I have wasted spent my holiday time meant for studying for block test. Now let's see, what was I doing...

-Cytus/Deemo

Yes, I have finally downloaded cytus. Despite the annoying cool down time I have had enjoyable time playing the game. Only bad thing is that I'm playing on my phone so whenever I slide the phone moves along and I end up missing a couple of notes. Hope that one day I can play on tablet.

Then I ended up watching loads of youtube videos about crazy people getting full combo using one hand, etc. Somehow I get introduced to deemo in one of the related videos. Seeing how the game is more similar to tap and piano, and how the music seems to be more nice sounding, I went to download it as well.

Turns out to be a really wonderful game, had lots of fun playing it. Especially love the song "wings of piano". Again some parts require me to swipe across the screen, which brings the same problem. Regardless it's a nice game, with beautiful graphics and a beautiful storyline.

-Salad Fingers

That's what the title is all about. I don't know how I got introduced to it, probably was in the related videos when I was watching cyriak. Then I went to see the first episode, then the second, then third...I can't stop, until I finished the tenth which I was first watching. Maybe because of too much cyriak, I wasn't creeped out or anything the first time I watch episode 10. But when I have finished the previous 9 episodes, I gained a bit of context, and also could be that it's 2am in the morning, that I ended up finding episode 10 the creepiest.

If you haven't watched the series, you won't know what I'm talking about here. The series appeared as a cartoon first on newgrounds, that was the pre-youtube era. It got really famous, due to it's disturbing nature and enigmatic meaning. It appeared to be really random, but at the same time you could not help wonder if there's some deep meaning behind them all.

I dug through the youtube comment sections and also some other websites that offer analysis and their own interpretations of the series. I'm going to do the same here, here are my two cents.

Overall

Many theories exist on what is the background of the story. Some say it's just random, some say it's salad finger's imagination, some say it's the post apocalyptic wasteland after the great war. I'm going to go with that the setting is created by salad finger's imagination. If you want to be literal here with the setting, then a series of practical questions emerge. Where do salad finger get his food from? Why does it appear that nobody is near salad finger, yet he can always find people? (the normal girl who talked to him, the bbq employee, the random boy who likes him, the yellow skinned person) If they are mutants, how do they live? Won't they be dead by now? Therefore, my conclusion is that it must have all been his imagination. In reality, he could be well taken care of, possibly in a mental asylum with stable supply of food.

The time this take place could be after both world wars, although only world war I is frequently mentioned (the great war) here. Ok, it could be only after world war I, but it doesn't matter in this case, because all we have to know is that he's living in a post war era where there's racial discrimination during his lifetime.

In overall, I think the main underlying theme of the cartoon is depicting his life through his crazy utterings and actions. It could be the things he has experienced through his lifetime, with random pieces added in here and there because the creator doesn't want to be coherent and too sensible. Now I shall do a detailed analysis of each episode.

Episode 1

Nothing is mentioned much here. In this episode we know that salad fingers like rusty things and spoons. We get introduced to the yellow skins guy, in this episode referred to as young child by SF. The yellow skin guy only cry like an elephant, but apparently SF can understand what he's saying. I guess the animator (David Firth) is just being random here.

Some theories say this obsession with rust could be linked to the obsession with blood, since dried blood do feel rusty due to the iron present in both.

Episode 2

In episode 2 things get intense. We get introduced to his friends, which are finger puppets he made, with formal and intricate names. My theory is that these friends are actually people who were important to him in his life. Real people, with names probably different from what he calls them (since he's seen anyhow making up names for people in later episodes).

Marjory Stewart Baxter is his wife. Jeremy Fisher is himself. Hubert Cumberdale is his alter ego that's bad and crazy. I know it's early for me to say these, but bear with me as I support with evidence from later episodes later on.

He tasted his puppets, first Marjory, which tastes like sunshine dust. Then Hubert which taste like soot and poo. This probably signify that he dislikes his bad alter ego.

Throughout the series, SF appeared really innocent, although the things he do can be weird and disturbing, he actually didn't hurt anyone. It suggests that he could have multiple personality disorder, if my interpretation is correct.

Also there's some correlation with France as he suddenly spoke french in the episode. He could have some french origin, or has received some education.

Then, he lured an innocent boy to reach a fish in his oven. From his expressions, it appeared to be deliberate. As the little boy go in and reach it, however, he released the door to touch a metal hook and poke through his finger with it. "I like it when the red water comes out", he said, which becomes his most famous quote.

Then he get some hallucinations, when he arrived in a meat filled place where a life size hubert stands. Some theories suggest that Hubert.C, when unscrambled, spell butcher. It could be his alter ego that's obsessed with meat, blood, stuff like that. Then Hubert suddenly screamed. Theories suggest it could actually be the little boy screaming.

The whole thing could be re enactment in his mind of him murdering a child, some suggest. I'm not sure for this one. All I can infer from this episode, is that it showcases the psychotic side of SF.

Lastly, in the scene when he just wake up from his hallucinations, we can see the puppet of marjory lying on the floor. It could mean that marjory has witnessed his act of killing the child, or the fact that the other two puppets are missing means that they are co-existing in SF.

Episode 3

Now things are getting weirder. First is his masochistic pleasures from nettles. He first put a nettle in a baby carrier and call it the nettle carrier, then push it away to his house. A guy in a BBQ company apron saw him and got very angry. He chased SF all the way to his house, and watch SF from the windows rubbing his breast with the nettle, which cause milk to come out from his teat :| The guy got really angry and banged his head on the door (with a number 22) cos he has no arms, which eventually caused him to die.

Meanwhile, SF said that the nettle make him think of happy times, with a flashback of him sitting with Hubert in a hair salon.

Then he finally opened the door, with the BBQ guy alr dead. He talked to the guy as though he's alive (like how he talks to other inanimate objects) and named him Milford Cubicle when his name tag apparently says harry. He then hang the corpse on a meat hook.

Then SF randomly start playing the flute, and in the end ask him if he would like a glass of warm milk.

I find this episode the hardest to interpret out of all. Some suggest that the nettle could be an actual baby that SF took, and harry is his father. Which is why he chased SF all the way to his house. The fact that he has no arms is really strange. Although I'm not a strong supporter of this theory, I do find a strong correlation between the nettle and baby.

I just thought of how similar nettle and nestle sound. But this seems far fetched. Ignore me I'm just random.

There are a lot of things that I don't get in this episode. Why does the guy have no arms? Why is his house numbered 22? Why does his happy times refer to him in a hair salon? Why does he play the flute?

I also suspect a correlation of meat with the corpse, since in the previous episodes we are shown many meat hang on hooks, just like this corpse. But this also seem a bit far fetched, esp since this meat-corpse correlation has not appeared much in the series.


Ok I realised how long this post is going to be if I am to continue with my analysis. I will end here, and possibly continue after BT or sth. One last thing to note is that SF use a lot of formal and proper English when speaking. This could suggest that he had been educated, or had a good upbringing.

I shall go back to the reality now.